


what we made for ourselves

by just_one_iota



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU magical elements, Angst, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Incest, M/M, Multi, Very very vaguely described sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24729313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_one_iota/pseuds/just_one_iota
Summary: In Valinor, they are blessed with many gifts. In the slow descent of Beleriand, they watch them become curses.
Relationships: Amras/Amrod/Caranthir/Celegorm/Curufin/Fëanor/Maedhros/Maglor
Kudos: 13





	what we made for ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tumblr post https://fuckingfinwions.tumblr.com/post/618234793873768448/findundergrounddragoutofwater 
> 
> The tl;dr is "Having sex with elves creates stuff, each elf makes a different Thing. Having sex is defined as the other person reaching orgasm. Example: When Finrod gives someone a blowjob, diamonds appear because diamonds are Finrod’s Thing."

In between her sculptures, Nerdanel thinks:

It's not that she didn't want the children, or that she didn't love them with all her heart once they were here. It's just that they weren't the primary objective.

"There's no shortage of clay supplies in Tirion," her father says while eyeing her studio judgementally.

"Not clay of this quality," she tells him as her hands mold strange and terrible shapes. If she looks at them from the right angle, their sharp edges seem almost alive and seething.

She makes a mental note to obtain more clay with Feanor later.

~

In Valinor, Maitimo is safety, right from the time when his brothers are little. He comes of age surrounded by feathers and he keeps them all. He collects them in his room, makes his world soft and warm to shelter his brothers in. When Tyelcormo grows older and starts leaving fur in his lover's beds, Nerdanel jokes that the two of them could form little nests. They certainly produce enough material.

~

(When Huan joins the household, it becomes more difficult to tell if Tyelcormo's been making a nuisance of himself or not.)

~

In their grandfather's guest rooms they discover that Carnistir's is- more embarrassing. More inconvenient.

It's Makalaure who finds out for the first time, high on endorphins, head thrown back against the ground and panting with Carnistir above him. There's a confused second where Carnistir's still aroused mind is focused only on _why have you stopped moving keep going please fuck_ -  
Then Makalaure goes still, blinking. Carnistir looks down, and, well.

Makalaure's hair is scattered around his head in the most artful possible way. (It's incredibly aggravating.) The strands almost seems to be multiplying, thickening like a dark pool of black seeping outwards.

An actual pool of black. The liquid is flowing slowly out from underneath his sides, reaching Carnistir’s leg. He reaches out a finger in fascination. The moment he touches it, he realises it's-

"Ink?" Makalaure says incredulously, his chest still rising and falling rapidly. He struggles clumsily to sit up, and slips down again. His voice becomes uncharacteristically unrefined as it rises in indignation. "What the fuck- _Carnistir_!"  
His hair is drowning limply, the aesthetic ruined. In the corner, Tyelcormo is laughing so hard that he's almost dislodged Maitimo from his lap. Carnistir feels himself helplessly turn bright furious red.

"Wait," Maitimo cries out in alarm, wriggling himself free of Tyelcormo's tight hold. "Wait, it's running-"

Too late, Carnistir sees the ink dripping over the edge of the mattress.

Finwe bans them from the palacial guest suites after that. He claims it's for the sake of the carpets.

(Aredhel finds out the next summer and calls him Squid Boy until he shoves her head into the market fountain.)

~

In secret, Carnistir is sometimes jealous of Curufinwe and the useful coal that crumbles underneath Carnistir's equally blackened fingertips. Always, always, he wanted to be more useful than his brother, wanted to be something.

Curufinwe is so beautiful though, stretched out in the forge-warped firelight. He looks like a piece of coal set afire himself.

Carnistir moves over him, sweat in the warmth between their bodies, and licks up the same lines the fire does. They are burning; no coal or ink could be blacker than Curufin's eyes.

Feanaro never lets Carnistir doubt his love. Usually it's outside, in rivers or on grass mounds, in a pile of straw or in the swimming hole where even the light of the Trees does not reach. Maitimo loves to join them.

Once, Feanaro lets Carnistir push him down onto his own bedspread in the master room, lets him destroy it. More than once, they go to Fingolfin's office and Carnistir's nose fills with the scent of parchment as his face is shoved against the desk. The mess they leave is petty. Every time, it's delicious.

~

In the soft light before Laurelin outshines Telperion, they tell Makalaure that his mother-name rings true. They tell him he will always be rich. He laughs and says that he would rather have them than all the gold in the world.

~

In the summer of their fiftieth year, the twins find theirs intertwined. There is no one else there, and they want no one else the first time they bring each other to bliss.

Afterwards they draw themselves back from an extended embrace, reluctant to allow one piece of skin to stop touching another.

"Your hair," says one half of Ambarussa, looking up and drawing his fingers through his brother's long red locks. A moment ago, he wouldn't have known which tresses belonged to which of them.

His twin blinks, sitting back on his heels. His eyes are very young and wide. He reaches up to his hair and feels something strange. When he draws his fingertips back, they're covered with tiny flecks of wood and something black.

"What...?" he asks, nose wrinkled up in confusion. Then he turns his attention away from their bodies at last and looks around. "We're surrounded by it."

"So we are," the Ambarussa on his back murmurs in surprise. He wriggles to prop himself up on his elbows and look. All around them is a fine dusting of wood dust and black dots, like charcoal.

He wonders for a brief moment what it means, but then:

"What about splinters," Ambarussa whispers with dawning horror.

The twins stare at each other. There is a moment of silence. Then Ambarussa starts giggling. He can't help himself. Then they're both laughing, pressing their foreheads together and drowning in the giddy sweet joy of what they've just done, what they've found within themselves. Love has turned their world bright and wild, and they're entwined together in the golden light of Laurelin.

(Their whole world is golden.)

~

In dark unending, beyond anything he has ever known, the sky is lit up. This is a world turned red and screaming, this is a burning taste in his mouth and the unrelenting, merciless sea.

He will not leave his other half. He fights his way through the chilling salt foam to his burning heart, tries to scrabble his way up the side of the boat to his brother, his _Ambarussa Ambarussa Ambarussa please no_  
His other brothers drag him ashore when there is nothing but flotsam and haze on the sea.

He hurts. It takes him a while to realise this. His brothers fuss over his burnt shoulder, the slice on his leg, vicious bruises where falling planks had slammed into him.

He doesn't care. He looks down at the hands that couldn't reach his brother, and all he sees are the shattered nails, the raw fingertips, and tiny wooden splinters forever lodged under his skin.

~

In the aftermath of grief in a land stripped of everything, motherless and fatherless and two brothers less, they find one more doom.

From the north (the dead places where the great grey stinking cloud hovers) something flies towards them.

They don't understand at first, and then they are too slow to react in the new world of darkness, and then they do not know what to do.

The flying creatures are too high for arrows to hit. They carry something, ropes clutched in each of their sharp and oil-slicked claws. Makalaure, squinting upwards, can't see anything but a sphere. Around him the people cry out and panic.

The creatures let go. The sphere falls. He tenses up, but there's nowhere to run, nothing to save him-

The sphere hits the ground and bursts. Against the dark sky, a cloud rises up almost in slow motion like an explosion. In stunning arcs like shooting stars feathers scatter over the camp, indescribably beautiful. They are golden brown. They fall like rain, like a blessing, like doom. They land on Makalaure's skin and in his hair, on every surface of the camp and on the ground. He sees, suddenly, how the ships blazed with the embers falling in a black sky.

The world is soft and aflame. The person he loves most is doomed.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at https://the-quiet-fire-of-defiance-is-me.tumblr.com/


End file.
